


The Illusion That Something Is Whole

by zylaa



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 09:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5085997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zylaa/pseuds/zylaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guinevere's perspective after the flashback events of season 5 episode 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Illusion That Something Is Whole

The spell is one of illusion, so she’s still there.

She’s trapped within the body that moves and smiles and agrees with her king, but she’s there.

When she first felt her body pulling away from her, like a puppet’s strings being cut one by one, she’d tried to scream. When she watched Arthur scatter the illusion across their kingdom, she shouted at him with every single one of the curse words, in two languages, that they’d taught each other as underfed village children. Except the words never came out of her smiling mouth.

She watched her friends in shimmering, gold-embroidered new clothes arrive for the first proper ball Camelot had ever seen, and she wondered if they were trapped too. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe the idea of a whole and unbroken Camelot had slotted into their minds as simply as replacing a splintered beam in a barnyard fence. She hoped that, for them.

Arthur had changed, too. He spent hours each day doing the sort of things kings were supposed to do, like hold feasts and dub knights and listen to petitioning subjects. In those hours, she hoped the spell had consumed him. She hoped he was screaming and helpless inside his own body too, that he looked out at the kingdom he’d bewitched and the horror of it was killing him, slowly, bit by bit. But then, when nobody was looking, he’d retreat to his own study and open up all the old books and scrolls on the missing piece of Excalibur, just like before.

He had asked her how to find it. She had to answer, because in marriages that aren’t broken, wives don’t keep secrets from their husbands. Arthur started hunting for books on how the Dark One’s magic could be broken, and when the books all agreed that one needed the dagger to do that, he started throwing books across the tower room.

When nobody was watching, Guinevere wandered the halls, her hands trailing along the stone walls, trying to feel the dirt and crumbling mortar of the real buildings underneath the false towers. The new castle didn’t have rats. She had tried to go down into the cavernous kitchens, once, to see if they still got rats there, and kind-faced cooks ushered her away, saying it was no place for a queen. Two of them had taught her how to cook, back when meat was a rarity reserved for holidays and special occasions.

Maybe their food was an illusion now, too. Maybe they’d all waste away of starvation.

Time passed. They did not starve.

Sometimes, Arthur would say, “Is everything alright, my love?” The first time he asked, she felt a wild leap of hope that the spell was crumbling, that she was breaking out at last. But no. Her body responded that she was only thinking over the problem of the missing Excalibur piece. Even in marriages that aren’t broken, wives sometimes need comforting.

The façade of the kingdom of Camelot often held tourneys. Guinevere always competed in archery, the only time when she felt like she had any control over the body that once had been hers. She could draw the bow and fire at pheasants and grouse, and her aim was always true. She imagined that each bird was Arthur. Arrow through the left eye. Arrow through the right eye. Arrow through the brain. Arrow through the heart.

She always won. A queen in a whole and unbroken kingdom can triumph over her subjects. And every time, when Arthur presented her with the victor’s cup, she tried to spit, “That was for you.” But the words came out with honeyed sweetness and a smile.


End file.
